Le Mans winner Salvadori dies at 90

Motorsport / 4 June 2012, 10:25am

Alan Baldwin

Roy Salvadori in the 1959 Le Mans-winning Aston Martin DBR1.

Former Formula One driver Roy Salvadori, a who also won the 1959 Le Mans 24 Hours sports-car race in a works Aston Martin he shared with American sports-car designer Carroll Shelby, has died at the age of 90.

The British Racing Drivers' Club said Salvadori, a contemporary of Stirling Moss and Britain's first World champion Mike Hawthorn in Grand Prix racing in the 1950s, died on Sunday morning.

His best season in Formula One was with Cooper in 1958, when he finished fourth overall behind compatriots Hawthorn, Moss and Tony Brooks, and finished second in the German Grand Prix and third in Britain.

His death and that of Shelby, designer of the Shelby Cobra and other sports cars, came just 23 days apart. - Reuters